How To: Holland Park

Not to toot my own horn, but I crushed the boys' Christmas gift. In leu of presents we give the kids experiences. I was humming and hawing about making a push to go to Holland Park on the boys' parent teacher conference day in November. But, after Robin told the kids they have a "fun mom" I felt like I needed to keep up the act.

Holland Park is a Dutch themed amusement park. In keeping with my summer vibe - we got to 'travel' without really leaving Berlin. In fact, we even biked there.

Biking in the outskirts of Berlin is dicey in that it's hard to know if you'll be riding on the road with cars. Nevertheless, I wagered that there had to be dedicated bike paths - I mean the park is Dutch themed after all. And oh, did the bike paths deliver - so flat, so uncrowded.

The key to this adventure, and to other crowded Berlin places like Tropical Islands, is you have to go when your particular school is closed but other Berlin schools are in session. Otherwise this place might be my nightmare. But as Holland Park was mostly empty, we had the climbing structures to ourselves. Thus, I could take 400 pictures of the cutest butt you've seen in a harness.

After we climbed until we couldn't grip, we head outside to this crazy slide tower: 

The boys did laps while I enjoyed a delicious cappuccino and a trip through the gift shop to get Stroopwafels and salted carmel chews. It was then that Hugo asked, "why are you being so nice to us." Christmas magic right there.

Not pictured is a very large, very randomly numbered, mini golf course. We were literally the only ones out there. We couldn't stay as long as we wanted however, because my phone was dying. Four hours wasn't enough to do this place justice. But, I didn't bring a charger and wanted a little bit of daylight for navigating the ride home by memory.

While I avoid crowds like the plague, I'd happily go back with any visitors who make the trek to visit us. Real Berlin (and themed Holland) await.